


Spies Miscellany

by liquidCitrus



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Houston Spies (Blaseball Team), Hurt/Comfort, Lore - Freeform, Multi, Mute Math Velazquez, Other, Spies & Secret Agents, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidCitrus/pseuds/liquidCitrus
Summary: A place to throw various Spies-related drabbles. Some worldbuilding, some loose Fitz/Math, we'll see what else when we get there.
Relationships: Alexandria Rosales & Fitzgerald Blackburn, Fitzgerald Blackburn/Math Velazquez
Kudos: 19





	1. The Dragon of Houston

**Author's Note:**

> Table of Contents
> 
> 1) The Dragon of Houston: Where the Spies might get their orders.  
> 2) Do You Think Math Likes Me?: Alex just wants Fitz to spit it out already.  
> 3) The BlaseballCares Showdown Is Math's Nightmare: Math recounts a particularly bad nightmare, and Fitz is comforting. Unquestionably shippy.  
> 4) Thrill-Seeking: Teddy Holloway reflects on why they're addicted to the adrenaline rush.  
> 5) Not The Normal Way To Get On A Plane: Reese Clark takes Comfort Septemberish along for a bit of a break-in.  
> 6) Santa Could Be You, Santa Could Be Me: Valentine has always been a Spy. But not in the way most people would think.  
> 7) The Finger Loss Meeting: Season 10 elections made all the Wild Low pitchers each lose a finger. The Spies all wake up to this. _Sosa Hayes_ , of all people, is the one who helps.  
> 8) Blooddrain Plan. The Spies have a plan, a procedure, to try to make getting one's blood drained a less traumatizing experience. It's still not enough.

There's a legend among the people of the working class in Houston, passed along between graveyard-shift bakers, laundry workers folding sheets, day laborers stapling roof shingles:

If someone in power has wronged you, if you can see no other recourse for the injustice that has been done: Write it down. Write down what has been done to you, write down what you need, write down what you fear, and hide it somewhere.

The where is always different, depending on who tells the story. Perhaps it should be stowed above a ceiling tile in an office; perhaps it should be left inside an old soda bottle in the gutter on a certain street. Perhaps it should be taped behind a sign. Perhaps it could be slipped into the letterbox behind an abandoned building.

And often this is just a wish, imagining what might be possible in a better and fairer world. Something to hold in your heart. Something that makes it possible to get through tomorrow.

But sometimes -

Sometimes one of the Spies goes out on a walk and checks a dead drop, and there's a tiny, folded paper inside. And when they get back to HQ and open it, it is a desperate plea from someone who works in a prison workshop, or whose teachers do nothing about the bullying, or who saw their co-workers injured by heavy machinery.

And, really, investigating that kind of thing, and doing something about it, isn't much different from the kind of things the Agency might ask them to do. It's entirely deniable. They can just claim they thought it was an order, same as all the other ones.

The people of Houston say that there is a mythic force that stalks the city, a dragon in the shadows, who deals in the kind of justice that cannot otherwise be done.


	2. Do You Think Math Likes Me?

"So, while we're here..." Fitz says, slowly. "You keep needling me about what relationship I might or might not have with Math."

"Yeah?" Alex says.

"Do you think..." The smoke of Fitz's face is turning white with embarrassment. "Please don't make me regret asking this."

Alex sips their tea slowly, waiting for Fitz to answer.

"Do-you-think-Math-likes-me," they spill out, finally, as if desperately trying to get the words out before they can think better of saying them.

Alex snickers. "You sound like you're twelve years old and admitting to your first crush."

"I mean." Fitz ducks their head. "I. Uh. It's."

"It's fine." Alex waves a hand. "Just, what do you think Math means when messaging you with algebra problems that have solutions like 'i <3u'?"

"I..." Fitz opens their mouth. Closes it. Opens it. Closes it. Slowly lowers their head to the table.

"You should just tell Math already. I know at this point me trying to get you to do it has become a running joke, but seriously. You have to say something."

"I mean, I guess..."


	3. The BlaseballCares Showdown Is Math's Nightmare

That morning, Fitzgerald Blackburn finds Math Velazquez clearly shaken, repeatedly drawing and erasing the same diagram over and over again, seemingly unaware of Math's surroundings until Fitz puts one hand on the paper.

"What's wrong?" Fitz asks.

Math fairly jumps, suddenly looking up at and then shrinking away from Fitz.

"Do you need space? I can leave, if you'd rather."

Math draws a circle on the paper with an arrow pointing towards the center.

"You want me to stay?"

Math sits at the nearest computer, tugs Fitz over to look at the screen, and begins typing furiously. The simplified text-only scoreboard used for remote-casting blaseball games takes shape, and then begins to fill.

_Top of 1, Danger Zone batting._

The game goes by absurdly quickly. Many names they recognize flash by, some of the best in the league and a handful of the worst. Solar eclipse weather. Reese and Fitz on opposite teams. They do pretty well, actually, considering who they're up against. Then Math stops as the simulated Reese Clark comes up to bat for the Danger Zone, and sinks downwards.

Fitz kneels next to Math, offering a hand for comfort. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

After a few minutes, Math pushes Fitz away and resumes typing, taking the game into extra innings and shame.

Almost immediately, Math launches into another game. Another solar eclipse. There are a few too many people swallowing the flame and becoming Magmatic, sure, but then -

_A Debt was collected. Rogue Umpire incinerated Danger Zone hitter Moody Cookbook! Replaced by Alx Pineapple. The Instability chains to the Ghosts's Pudge Nakamoto!_

Immediately afterwards, rogue umpires incinerate Sebastian Telephone and Pudge Nakamoto, and the instability chains further.

Math finishes writing that game, curls inwards, and starts shaking. Three deaths in one game. The last time this happened was -

Fitz realizes suddenly what Math was doing here. "You were panic-rostering again, weren't you."

After a few moments, Math extends a few fingers and signs: [TRUE]

"For in case Unstable showed up again?"

[TRUE]

"Hey." Fitz reaches an arm around Math. "It's okay. Jaylen paid off her Debt years ago. We've still got years of siesta, of safety. You won't need to worry about it anytime soon."

[Hypothetically], Math begins -

"You're here, and I'm here," Fitz says, sweeping Math into a hug. "I want to enjoy the time we have together right now. I'd rather you not spend it borrowing trouble from countless multiverses."

Math slowly, slowly relaxes, and reaches up to comb through Fitz's smoke-hair with conceptual fingers.


	4. Thrill-Seeking

The slow, crushing dread goes away when Theodore Holloway goes skydiving, or sneaks into a high-security vault, or slides down that three-hundred-foot rope from the roof of the stadium straight into the batter's box instead of just walking onto the field. Everything burns off, leaving only that cold suspended moment of adrenaline-clarity: _this is life. This is death._

It was a thrill once, Blaseball was. Teddy knew what they were running the risk of when they signed up; they'd investigated the rumors of the Forbidden Book back in the day, back when the Agency still gave them orders. But they look around the field when they play, and there are so many others who didn't know, didn't want, didn't _deserve_ this. Those people can't back out, and it's control - the ability to stop at any time - that makes it possible for Teddy to walk, fearless, out of a helicopter without looking back.

(They try not to think about how they're not allowed to leave Blaseball either.)

Teddy would give others that clarity, if they could. When they were younger, they tried: to take Son out shoplifting, to show Morrow roller-derby. But these days it's just not worth it anymore.

They pull the trenchcoat tighter around themself, flex their hand in their glove, and, with a subtle tip of their hat, signal Sosa Hayes to throw the pitch.


	5. Not The Normal Way To Get On A Plane

Reese Clark and Comfort Septemberish could absolutely have just gotten into their flight to the playoff stadium the normal way, you know, through the gate and presenting tickets and all, but they're sneaking in the back of the plane with the luggage, because Comfort could use the practice.

They're driving one of those luggage trolleys, having borrowed it while the person responsible went to the bathroom. They park underneath the plane.

"Remember what we practiced that you should say if someone asks -" Reese begins.

"Sorry I thought this was my shift thanks for taking care of hey how are the kids!" Comfort belts out.

Reese looks around, alarmed, hoping desperately that nobody has noticed. Someone folding up a fuel hose waves to Reese, and they hurriedly turn away and evaluate who else -

Comfort is standing on the roof of the luggage trolley, having already somehow picked the lock of the luggage compartment. They grin at Reese and wave something in their hand.

"Got your nose!" they sing-song, climbing into the plane.

Reese feels at their face and realize that Comfort has indeed stolen their nose from underneath their... well, right in front of them.

Well then.

As Reese clambers up to follow, they holler up at Comfort: "Hey! That was my line!"


	6. Santa Could Be You, Santa Could Be Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend to write a holiday special. I did not _want_ to write a holiday special. But the idea came spilling out my fingers anyway.

Every team leaves a mark. There's the obvious ones: the Hellmouth shaping you to itself, for example, or the Crabs making your skin flake away to carapace, or being From Chicago. But every other team stamps itself onto you, in a way. The Tacos and their anticapitalism. The Shoe Thieves and their daring. The Fridays and their perspective on time.

The Spies' thumbprint is a bit more subtle.

Once upon a time, Valentine had asked: why did the other kids at school argue about whether Santa Claus was real? Valentine's dad pulled them aside a few minutes before they started lighting the candles for sunset, and told them: Santa was real, in a sense. Not in the sense most of them talked about, not the old man with the beard and the hat who came down the chimneys - but the truth about Santa was that _anyone_ could be Santa, and bring that magic into the world themselves. And so that year, and every year after that, they found people who would never have been cared about otherwise, and sent them the gifts they needed: watched from behind the cover of trees as homeless people found a bundle of socks in front of their tents, the old woman on the end of the street discovered new rubber tips for her cane dropped off on her porch, the kids who couldn't afford lunch found a package of school lunch tickets slipped in through the air vents in the front of their lockers. They savored that joy and never, ever revealed themselves, to preserve that mystery in the world for others.

They'd dropped away from the tradition in college, needing the money to pay for their textbooks, and then things just kept... coming up.

The Spies say that, rather than inducting you into the Spies, all they are doing is revealing to you that you have been a Spy all along. Val doesn't know about anyone else, but this makes sense to them. They were Santa, once, and the way Santa did it is the way the Spies do it. They can slip back into that role again.


	7. The Finger Loss Meeting

It's an absurd hour in the morning when the Spies shuffle into the conference room.

"So this meeting is about..." Reese squints at their screen. "Missing fingers?"

Marco silently holds up the relevant hand.

Teddy swears. "What happened? When?"

"I just woke up like this," Bean says, showing their own hand. "I'm..."

"Me too," Alex says, softly.

Sosa splays a hand on the table. "How many of us? All the pitchers?"

"Getting reports of the same from Flowers and Dale," adds Jordan, scrolling through something on their tablet, haltingly, wincing when their stump hits the screen.

"And - here I thought - " Marco sits heavily. "Can everyone who still has all their fingers, like, leave? For a moment?" 

A few murmurs, but they shuffle out of the room.

"Another reminder that even our own bodies don't belong to us." Marco's voice, spiced with an undefinable unearthly accent, begins to echo despite the room's sound-dampening walls. "Why? Why do they keep doing this to us?"

"You can absolutely be angry about this." Alex sits next to Marco, gingerly trying not to touch anything with their own injured hand. "I'm sorry."

Marco turns. "Why are you apologizing? You're not the one who cut off everyone's fingers."

"How do you know that?" Jordan says.

"Jordan," Alex warns. "That's enough."

"I was just -" Jordan is cut off by Alex, who makes a furious motion in their general direction.

Karato sits down across the table. "It could be worse. At least we still have all our hands."

Marco fairly explodes. "Do you just not *care*? Are you seriously here talking about how oh it's perfectly fine that the ILB *cut off our fingers?*"

"We heal quickly," Bean says, but less certainly. "We all have more fingers than we started with originally." Karato's voice wavers. "You know, other blessings and all that." 

"Do not pretend this is fine! We all just had our fingers snipped clean off while we were - " Marco bangs the table and immediately cries out in pain, cradling their left hand.

Sosa has been rummaging through the first aid kit on the wall, and turns back to the table with a tin of those cute adhesive bandages with popular characters printed on them: Spies-branded merch. They pop the tin open and set it on the table. "Let's make it better, first."

"Okay." Marco picks one out, unwraps it, and stares. "How do I..."

Sosa has somehow already bandaged their own finger without help. "Your hand?"

Marco holds it out.

Sosa carefully wraps the bandage over the stump. "How's that?"

Marco looks down. "...Better. Somehow."

Sosa looks up, finding Karato winding electrical tape around the place Jordan's finger used to be, having themself already been bandaged.

"Alex?" Sosa asks.

"It's fine," Alex says, staring at the table. "I've had worse, and it'll heal by itself soon enough."

Sosa picks out one where the little absorbent cushion has been cut off-center. "This one's a defect that wasn't going to be usable anyway. Better for it to do *someone* some good."

"If you say so. If it wasn't going to help anyone else." Alex holds up their hand, squeezing their eyes shut and struggling not to cry, as Sosa applies the bandage and pats their shoulder.

Sosa looks around at them all. "If there's anything that we - that I've learned over the many years of being a normal adult human living a normal adult human life, it's that staying together - holding on and never letting go of each other - we can do anything. Uh. I can do anything. Normal anything, not magic or whatever. I don't know where I was going with this."

"Don't worry about it," Marco says. "I think I get what you mean."


	8. Blooddrain Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Spies have a plan, a procedure, to try to make getting one's blood drained a less traumatizing experience. It's still not enough.
> 
> **CONTENT WARNINGS: blooddrain that involves literal blood drinking, hypodermic needle use, dissociation**

Season 10. Day 82. Theodore "Teddy" Holloway is up to bat, facing the Sunbeams, when the pitcher stops mid-windup.

All eyes in the stadium turn to Igneus Delacruz, who is sprinting towards the plate. Time telescopes, seconds stretching, as Teddy rips open one of the pockets on their trenchcoat, withdraws the kit, pulls one arm inside the trenchcoat to shelter it, rips the wipe open and swabs the crook of their elbow, and -

Igneus is already on Teddy, the stink of bloodlust in their eyes, ready to sink their teeth into Teddy's flesh. Instinctively, Teddy knees Igneus in the groin, sending the latter crashing ungracefully to the ground. This will only hold Igneus off for a few seconds. That's going to have to be enough.

In a practiced maneuver, Teddy finds the vein and slides the needle in. The Spies' standard-issue crazy straw fills with blood, and Teddy fairly shoves the other end in Igneus' face.

Teddy stares at Igneus as the bloodlust in the latter's eyes dims. "Sorry," Igneus offers afterwards, pointlessly, and runs back towards the outfield, as if hoping everyone will forget the whole matter.

Teddy pulls out the needle and tapes the gauze down. Their vision wavers. They're supposed to bat now, but everything feels too heavy, too thick, too far away, and Teddy stands there, staring blankly as blaseballs whiz past them. Ball. Ball. Strike, looking. Ball. Strike, looking.

At first base, Reese puts their hands in their pockets and, whistling, begins sauntering towards second base. The game logs will say that they've been caught stealing, but as soon as they get tagged out, Reese rushes over to support Teddy as they stumble back to the dugout.

Son offers Teddy a juice box. Teddy takes it, silently, and lies down on the bench in the dugout as the others take to the field.


End file.
